John Schmid Music

Author: Beth Miller

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

2020 started well: A concert on New Years Eve at Shipshewana; a “birthday bicycle ride” on New Years Day (71 miles); several prison services before heading for Harrisonburg, Va. on the way to Florida; concerts and visiting in Pinecraft, and then four prison services at the Annual We Care Prison Week in Alabama.

After two weeks of events in Ohio we headed back to Florida for our Annual CGM Banquet, concerts, a prison or two, and then I joined The We Care Prison Ministries Banquet Tour: thirteen cities and banquets from Meigs, Ga.to Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas… And then- BOOM! COVID!

We took a basketball team to Grafton Prison on March 16. The next day all Ohio prisons were quarantined. Soon, all prisons in the country were closed. Eleven events and services were cancelled in March and fifteen events were cancelled in April. I didn’t count the total number for the year, but I’m guessing close to 100 events on my calendar were cancelled.

My pastor, John Risner, summed up the year in his sermon on the last Sunday of the year:
The year started out with much hope and excitement. THEN… 1. COVID 2. Toilet paper shortage 3. Zoom Meetings 4. Face Book Live Concerts 5. Schooling from home 6. High School Sports cancelled (while our girls were at the State Tournament!) 7. Study online 8. Quarantine

  1. Travel ban 10. Unemployment 11. Businesses closed 12. Social unrest 13. Financial hardships 14. Riots 15. Prostests 16. Murder hornets 17. Conspiracy theories 18. Outrage everywhere
  2. Anger 20. Public meltdowns 21. A contested presidential election 22. And there was even an Amish political parade (in Fredericksburg)!…

BUT! After a month or so of “nothing” and many cancellations, I was able to do a few things. I sang about once a month at the Walnut Hills Nursing Home on the porch outside. I did some mushroom hunting and found no mushrooms, but I did test positive for Lymes disease. (The Dr. thinks we got it in time.)

In July I fulfilled a bucket list dream of following my great-great-great-great grandfather’s 1812 journey to Wayne Co. from Mingo Bottom, Ohio (now Mingo Junction) to Apple Creek via canoe. He floated down the Ohio River in a 68’ dugout canoe to the mouth of the Muskingum, then up the Muskingum to the Killbuck Creek, then up stream to just north of Holmesville where he unloaded the goods off his canoe near Butler Spring onto four 4 horse wagons and drove overland to Apple Creek, where he lived until his death in 1838. His trip took a month.

On July 5, daughter Amelia and I launched our 17’ aluminum canoe (with a motor) at Mingo Junciton and headed down the Ohio River. In two days we reached the Muskingum where we motored up stream through a series of locks to McConnelsville where Lydia met us and we switched daughters. Katie jumped in the canoe and Amelia went home with Lydia. Altogether there are 11 locks on the Muskingum, which is the longest river that is entirely in Ohio. Katie and I made it Conesville, just south of Coshocton, where we ran aground in the wide and shallow river, so we stopped there and I finished several days later in a kayak! 160 miles total trip! Our Philip Smith II family heritage trip.

After the canoe trip we went to New Wilmington, Pa.to meet several of Lydia’s cousins for the first time. It’s a long story, but her grandfather came from there around 1918 and that side of the family was basically cut off. Everyone was excited to meet each other and now we are having the Byler Family Reunion in that community this summer.

The rest of the year slowly opened up to churches, banquets, concerts… just about everything but prisons. They are still closed and ultra cautious. COVID in a prison could spreat like wildfire! We did get the opportunity to send in 45,000 cookies, but we could not go in with them. We delivered them to the front gate and left.

The year ended with a perfect white Christmas- six inches of snow on Christmas Eve and then it left about three days later!

In FEBRUARY- We plan to finish the We Care Tour (see schedule) and then back to Florida for our Annual CGM Banquet, a concert at Birky Square and then back to Ohio.

Blessings! Pray for us! May God grant us a good year and bring us back to “normal.”

A Song Speaks To The Heart

I try not to let it bother me, but when somebody gets up and leaves during one of my concerts, it bothers me.

Last week at The Salvation Army Resource Center in Medicine Hat, Alberta, I was singing a Tribute To Johnny Cash before transitioning to gospel by singing Steve & Annie Chapman’s song, I Want To Go With My Daddy. Halfway through the song a man abruptly stood up and walked out. I guess he doesn’t care for Gospel songs?

After the concert his buddy told me the rest of the story: When he heard Steve Chapman’s lyrics about a son following his dad down the wrong path, he said, “I’m going to go spend time with my son!”

What a great reason to leave a concert! Even if it’s me singing! Great lyrics, Steve Chapman!

Steve Chapman once told me that some of his songs are recorded with the purpose of never being sung in a concert setting. They are recorded to reach that man who drives his pickup by himself with a CD player and hears God speak to him through a song when no one else is around. I don’t think I Want To Go With My Daddy is one of those, but it sure did speak to a man publicly in Medicine Hat last month. And he acted. Right now!

Songs seem to speak where preaching or reading doesn’t. Gospel Echoes representative, John Yoder, who toured with me in Alberta, told about a man who approached him at a banquet last year: “I was incarcertated at _____ Correctional several years ago when your team came to our prison. I was not allowed to attend the chapel, so you came back to my unit and sang for the 20 minutes you were allowed. I want to tell how much that meant to me. Many groups come and talk to us, but you sang. It touched my heart.”

Now folks, let me clarify, speaking and preaching are very important, and I consider my singing as “plowing the ground for the seed that will be planted by the preaching of the Word.” But sometimes singing is what reaches the heart of a man. It did in these two examples. Stories like these keep me singing.

I wish there was room to put the words to Steve’s song here, but they can be heard by googling, I Want To Go With My Daddy by Steve Chapman.

A closing thought:

WHY MUSIC?

I. Music is a science.
II. Music is Mathemtical
III. Music is a Foreign Language
IV. Music is History
V. Music is Physical Education
VI. Music Develops Insight and Demands Research
VII. Music is all these things, but most of all, Music is Art.

That is why we teach music:
Not because we expect you to major in music…
Not because we expect you to play or sing all your life…

But so you will be human…
So you will recognize beauty…
So you will be closer to an infinite beyond this world…
So you will have something to cling to…
So you will have more love, more compassion, more gentleness, more good-In short, more LIFE.